Why is it so hard to get on-theme links?
February 27, 2008
In my Search Engine Myths Exposed report, as well as in various blog posts I've written in the past, I make the statement that it's much more difficult to get links into your site from other sites in the same general subject area. This is especially true for niche sites like "bonsai trees" or "Florida deep sea fishing" — any site that has a limited number of similarly themed sites in Google.
Despite making that statement, I've never actually gone into detail regarding why it's so difficult to get links from webmasters who own niche sites related to your own. It's important to understand these reasons, and I think examining them will bring some enlightenment into one of the problems with search engines today.
You see, before the enlightened days where lots of links were the primary factor for ranking a web site, people would link out to each other just because it made sense to do so. There were some competition issues, sure, but it was a rare web site that did not have a "related links" page to help you out in case their own site failed to provide the information you were looking for.
Google changed all that when links started becoming important for ranking. Once links mattered in the ranking of a page, webmasters were much less likely to share links with other sites. You see, before link-based search engine algorithms, linking to someone else didn't help them in their competition against you for ranking in the search engines. Since search engines were then based only on the relevance of the page to the search terms, you could link out to whoever you want and still rank just fine.
When Google came on the scene with their famed PageRank algorithm, a link to somebody else's site in the same niche became a de facto vote against your own site. This caused webmasters to be much stingier, requiring a link back from the other site before they would link out to them. Thus the world of commercial reciprocal linking was born, and it prospered for some years.
Google finally realized that they had to do something about this, and all but shut down a person's ability to rank well with reciprocal links alone. Now Google wants to see "one-way" links (or at least links they think are "one-way"). Webmasters are now even less likely to link to you, because they know a reciprocal link does them no good at all, but what they need are one-way links.
Keep in mind that I'm talking about the webmasters who are familiar with search engine optimization here. That includes a large number of commercial web sites whose business lives or dies on how well they rank. The majority of search terms are dominated by such sites these days.
Are you seeing how things went from bad to worse here? First, it was easy to get links because webmasters naturally linked out to related sites as a courtesy to their visitors. Then things got harder when Google implemented a link-based algorithm, and you could only get links from webmasters who you were willing to link back to reciprocally. Finally, when Google started devaluing reciprocal links, it was like pulling teeth to get other sites to link to you from the same niche, and you often ended up having to pay for those links.
In the past you could send emails to the top 100 sites in your niche requesting that they link to your site because it would be beneficial to their visitors, and if your site had great content the majority would give you a link. Try that today, though, and watch how fast your domain lands on the SPAM lists because those same webmasters report you for "spamming" them with link requests.
So what's a webmaster in need of ranking to do? Get off-theme links!
You see, if you're wanting to rank for "Florida deep sea fishing", you're not in competition with the guy who's trying to rank for "bonsai trees" — and you both know it. Because of that, there's much less reluctance to link. Compound that with my earlier case studies on how powerful off-theme links are (which was also demonstrated in my Search Engine Myths Exposed report), and you've got a winning combination! Exchange links properly (by using an automated service like 3WayLinks.net) and watch your rankings rise!
Yes, off-theme links work brilliantly to rank you in Google, and they're far easier to acquire. I think, though, that it's a rather sad side effect of link-algorithms that they have create inhibitions about linking to quality sites in the same niche. In the old days people linked to each other just because it made sense to do so, and much of that has been lost in the "links are king" days of Google.
Don't get me wrong, Google has vastly improved the quality and relevance of search results over prior search engines like AltaVista (remember them?), but in doing so, has it caused as much harm as it has good? I mean, search for anything even vaguely commercial in Google and you'll see the top results dominated by sites which have obviously used link manipulation to get to the top.
"Link popularity" is really a myth — what you see in the search results is the result of strategic manipulation engineered to improve the sites' rank. There's no true "popularity" or "democracy" about it. In order for our businesses to thrive, we have to fight fire with fire and do the same.
I have no problem with automating my link-building to rank my own sites, but wouldn't it be nice if the search engines rewarded quality over SEO know-how?
Please leave your thoughts and comments below.
|
Like what you see? Then subscribe to Marketing Insiders and reap big benefits! By subscribing to my free Marketing Insiders email list, you will regularly receive special member-only insider information, discounts and freebies. You will also be notified when new articles are posted here at the blog. It's absolutely free to subscribe, and you can leave the list at any time. For subscribing today, I will give you a valuable free gift as well! |
Position your business for today AND tomorrow.
February 19, 2008
A little boy was at the street trying to sell lemonade. His stand was well built, and he had distributed flyers across the neighborhood to let everyone know that if they wanted a refreshing glass of lemonade, his house was the place to get it. It was mid-afternoon now, and the boy had been manning his stand since early that morning, but made no sales.
A few minutes later a neighbor came by, walking his dog. The neighbor was wrapped up in a heavy coat, pulling it tightly to him. Even his dog had a sweater on. The neighbor saw the boy with his lemonade stand and was shocked.
"What are you doing?" the neighbor asked the boy. "It's below freezing!"
"That's true," the young entrepreneur replied, "but in a few months it will be warm, and I'm planning for the future!"
I can't tell you how many webmasters I've heard from who are trying to sell lemonade in the middle of winter. By that I mean that they are trying to out-think Google and build their sites around what Google may or may not do in the future instead of what is known to bring results right now.
Don't get me wrong — you need a long term plan. Without long term goals your business has no direction for growth. But countless webmasters are sacrificing the short term profits that will help them achieve their long term goals by ignoring what works today.
One big example is link building. After my Search Engine Myths Exposed report was launched I read a few blog posts from people saying, basically, 'It might work to get off-theme links now, but at some point Google is going to stop counting them.' Their point was that because Google might take some action in the future, you should ignore the benefits gained from receiving off-theme links today.
It's beside the point that I completely disagree with those who claim that Google will one day ignore off-theme links. The point is that those folks are encouraging people not to do what will help their bottom line today, because they think it won't work tomorrow. Meanwhile, their competition is out-ranking them in Google by getting off-theme links.
Look at it this way: if the creators of the VHS video tape knew that one day the DVD format would come along and blow them out of the water, would it have been a wise decision never to go forward with VHS? Hardly! VHS was the format of choice for well over a decade. Billions of dollars were made with that format before DVD finally did come along as the wave of the future.
Let's extend that even further: Sony's Blu-Ray has officially won the war against Toshiba's HD DVD format. If Blu-Ray eventually replaces DVD, would the creation of the DVD have been a bad idea from the get-go? Of course not! Again, billions of dollars later, it was hardly a bad idea just because the future may turn a different way.
The same thing applies to your business. You want to have long term goals that take into consideration the winds of change, both with search engines and other traffic generation techniques. But you should also have short term goals that exercise the methods known that work right now.
The key word here is "balance." Don't put all of your time into your long term goals and miss out on today's profits, but don't focus so completely on short term methods that, if they ever do stop working, you're dead in the water. Put time into both. This, of course, is much easier once you are at a point where you can outsource the daily grunt work tasks.
You see, the problem with the winds of change is that they are by nature very unpredictable. Who can foresee precisely what will or will not happen next month, or next year, or five years from now? There are far too many variables. Weather forecasters have long since demonstrated that the more variables there are, the less accurate your prognostication will be.
So the best thing you can do as a business is to have more general long term goals: "I want to achieve one million visitors per month to my web site in the next 3 years," or "I want to create a new product in my market each year over the next 5 years." As you get closer and closer to those deadlines, you mold and craft your goals to fit more closely to the actual climate and environment of the time you're in. Meanwhile, the profits from your short term goals are helping to make those long term goals a reality.
Yes, the boy with the lemonade stand would have been better off selling hot chocolate during those cold winter days, and in the evening working to perfect his lemonade recipe, or improve the design of the flyer he intended to use come summer. Had he been selling hot chocolate, he would have had the money he needed to really launch his lemonade business when the time was right. As it is, he'll have exactly what you would expect a person selling lemonade in freezing weather to have: nothing at all.
Please leave your thoughts and comments below.
|
Like what you see? Then subscribe to Marketing Insiders and reap big benefits! By subscribing to my free Marketing Insiders email list, you will regularly receive special member-only insider information, discounts and freebies. You will also be notified when new articles are posted here at the blog. It's absolutely free to subscribe, and you can leave the list at any time. For subscribing today, I will give you a valuable free gift as well! |
Work ON your business, not IN it.
February 11, 2008
I once made the mistake of hiring a company that specialized in handling technical support for online businesses. The single person assigned to my (smallish) account at the time was a member of MENSA. She was a true-blue certified genius with a technical background.
Who could ask for more, right? Wrong! The woman turned out to be completely unable to handle the support for my business, and after a couple of months of fighting and hoping for the best, I fired the firm.
From that point on I became a bit of a control freak about my business. I mistakenly assumed that if a certified genius with a technical degree was unable to handle my tech support, that I just needed to give up and do it all myself.
After about 18 months of that I was at the point where 80% of my time was used up handling support requests. My business stopped growing. I was chained down by support requests, stuck working in my business instead of on it.
Not long after that Mike Filsaime asked me to give him a call, which I did. We had a long conversation about outsourcing things like support requests.
Mike laid the bare truth on me in a way that only he can. "Jon," he said, "you have two choices: you can burn yourself out doing everything yourself, or you can hire out and watch your business grow."
"But Mike," I protested, "nobody is going to be able to give my customers the kind of support I can! I created these products."
"That may be true," he replied, "but not even you can do what you do for an endless number of customers without killing yourself. At some point you simply will not be able to handle it."
He was right, too. I was already at the point of wanting to chuck it all because I just couldn't keep up with the support requests the way I wanted to — forget about growing my business!
So I did some hard thinking about what I was going to do. Mike told me that he managed to get a very happy customer of his to do support for one of his products in return for a percentage of the profits. That worked very well because the person was not just an employee, but was actually invested in doing a good job.
I decided to give that a try, and ended up hiring Amin Motin, a very active member at one of the support forums I ran. I had already made him a moderator at the forum because of his freely dispensing so much good advice and support to folks there. It seemed only natural to have him do support for my other products.
Amin is also invested in my business. His "salary" comes from a variety of web sites and services which turn a profit for both of us. And you know what? I was very wrong when I said that nobody could give my customers the same level of support that I was giving them. Amin is better than me, more patient and helpful with my customers, and I've read more praise directed at him than I have room to share here.
After bringing Amin on board I suddenly had a huge amount of time to devote both to personal and business pursuits. My net monthly income has increased 40% because of being free to work on other projects and toy with ideas I'd had in the back of my mind — and this increase has come despite Amin's share of the profits and me working fewer hours than I did before (I devote a lot more time to my personal ministry work now).
You see, I had the wrong outlook on my business. I was so afraid to let go of a piece of my business that I had been burned on before that it was strangling its growth (and stressing myself out beyond belief). I also had the mistaken notion that I couldn't afford to pay somebody to handle the support for me. What Mike helped me to see, and what indeed has proven to be true, is that I couldn't afford not to have someone else doing support.
Now I outsource everything. My site design, graphics and logos, my support, my content creation. You name it. If it can be outsourced, I try a few folks out until I find the one who fits the bill and I stick with them.
Doing this has dramatically increased not only my bottom line, but also my peace of mind. My family and I travel on vacation, and I'm not stuck doing support tickets in the evening while we're away. I don't stress about how support is going to get handled, because Amin is so fantastic at it. I never worry about how my next web site or product is going to look, because the guys at GraphicsGenie.com do such a fantastic job on every product I put up.
You may really not be able to afford to hire out just yet, and that's understandable. I was in that position at first also. But I promise you, I promise you, that as soon as you can make room in your budget to start hiring out the services that you do not absolutely have to handle yourself, you will find your business blossoming into something much greater than you could possibly make it by yourself.
Please post your thoughts and questions in a comment below.
|
Like what you see? Then subscribe to Marketing Insiders and reap big benefits! By subscribing to my free Marketing Insiders email list, you will regularly receive special member-only insider information, discounts and freebies. You will also be notified when new articles are posted here at the blog. It's absolutely free to subscribe, and you can leave the list at any time. For subscribing today, I will give you a valuable free gift as well! |
-
Jonathan Leger has been earning his living online full-time since the fall of 2004. He regularly posts advice about search engine optimization (his current passion), AdSense and Internet Marketing. He is the creator of a suite of popular software tools, including: Jonathan L Leger 
-
